The Angry Bear

The Death of Shame In any society not in a state of civil war, shame is a powerful force, perhaps the most powerful.  Individuals or organizations caught cheating, lying or otherwise doing evil, when exposed and called out, are expected to be embarrassed.  They should repent their sins and promise to make amends.  Other than pure coercion, what else can disarm those who violate the norms of society? Evolutionary biologists tell us shame is hardwired not...

A baseline road map for the 2020 elections Now that the 2018 midterm elections are behind us, let’s take a preliminary look at 2020. It occurred to me that a decent baseline for that election is to simply take the total 2018 House votes for each state, assume that the Presidential vote in 2020 in each state will be the same, and apply that to the Electoral College. Alternatively, you could use the results of the 2018 Senate races in those states where...

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for November 5 – 9 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Interest rattes rose even further this past week, portend further erosion in the housing market. As usual, not only does reading this post give you of the up-to-the-moment view of the economy, but it also put a little extra $$$ in my pocket.

Big producer price increase in October – if a trend – is a problem In a light data week, this morning’s report on producer prices is certainly worth mentioning.  As you may have read elsewhere, headline producer prices rose +0.6% in October, the highest reading in 6 years. The below graph compares that (blue) with commodity prices (red): As you can see, commodity price increases were within the normal range. The difference happens when we break...

A Washington State Carbon Tax Goes Down in Flames Initiative 1631, which would have created a carbon tax in Washington State, lost by almost 12% of the vote this week.  Commentators on all sides have interpreted this as a decisive defeat for carbon pricing, making more indirect policies like subsidies to renewables the only politically feasible option.* I don’t have time for a lengthy analysis, but in a few words I want to suggest that this conclusion...

Between 9 and 10 November 1938, more than 1,400 synagogues and prayer rooms, thousands of Jewish-owned homes, hospitals, shops and cemeteries were damaged or destroyed across Nazi Germany and Austria. At least 91 Jewish people were killed and an estimated 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps at Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen. It does not look like much has changed in the last 30 years and indeed has worsened for Jews and...

Gerrymandering is not going away any time soon. It will just be used in different manner, a manner in which to achieve congressional districts with a fairer representation of the district’s constituency. Why won’t gerrymandering go away? The districts are too big at an average of 700,000 people per district. This is the result of Congress freezing the number of Congressional Representatives at 435 in 1929 and reapportioning the districts of each state...

Four states had the Medicaid Expansion on the ballot this last election and another is still fumbling around with expanding it.. The Good Idaho: Idahoans approved Idaho Proposition 2, an initiative requiring the state to submit an amendment to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in order to implement the Medicaid expansion no later than 90 days after the approval of the act. The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare is required and...

Senate: Arizona: “In Arizona’s race for the Senate, two candidates are separated by about 16,000 votes with approximately 75 percent of results in. Republican Rep. Martha McSally was leading her Democratic opponent Rep. Kyrsten Sinema by less than 1 percent in the race to fill outgoing Republican Sen. Jeff Flake’s seat.” The last I read somewhere, Sinema had over taken McSally and the race was too close to call. This will not throw the Senate into a...